


my body will be on the same page

by nickyyusuf



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Tenderness, Trans!Nicky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:20:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25715707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickyyusuf/pseuds/nickyyusuf
Summary: After centuries of searching, they finally find something to ease Nicky's dysphoria. The problem? They're not sure if it'll work.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 11
Kudos: 196





	my body will be on the same page

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this at like 4am and did not proofread it at all... enjoy

Nicky peels off his shirt, tosses it onto the bed as he settles in the chair at the desk and looks over the items laid out. A vial, two needles, an unnecessary amount of alcohol pads. He can’t do this. Centuries spent praying to a God he isn’t quite sure he believes in anymore and he finally has what he wants, what he needs, and he can’t.

“What if it doesn’t work?” He tears his eyes away from the supplies to look up at Joe. What if his body doesn’t accept it? Would that be his immortality or his body telling him he was wrong, he made a mistake about himself?

“Then we will figure something else out,” Joe whispers, reaching out to cup Nicky’s face with one hand and he melts a little into the touch, but it also reminds him- yet again -he has Joe. He’s not alone in this, he has never been alone in this since he met Joe.

Nicky looks back to the supplies laid out. “I can’t do this.” His hands are too shaky, his breathing too out of control, his heart is beating too fast, everything is just too much. He draws in a deep breath, taking the vial and one packaged needle in his shaky hands, and offering it to Joe who accepts it without question.

“Anything for you, my love.”

There’s no need to sanitize the top of the vial or carefully open the packaging in preparation and lay it out so nothing gets contaminated, but Joe does. There’s no need for Joe to wipe the alcohol pad in wide circles starting from outside Nicky’s belly button to his sides, but he does.

Nearly a millennia together and his heart still aches over these simple acts. His body will fight off infection before he even knows he has one, if they forgo sanitizing, but it’s not about that; it’s about Joe not wanting any harm to come to him, even if he will recover and never even notice it.

Joe’s hands are steady when he twists the injection needle onto the syringe and slowly pushes the plunger until a bead of liquid forms at the tip, then one hand gently pinches Nicky’s stomach. And something in his chest hurts- in a good way -as he watches Joe do all of this without even glancing at the instructions laid out, because it means he must have read and memorized it already- prepared for this moment.

Time seems to move… slowly in the seconds it takes Joe to find the right angle and push the needle in. Nicky waits with bated breath for something to happen, to feel pain, to feel his body fighting back against this intrusion but nothing happens and he doesn’t know if he should trust it.

He has spent centuries at war with his body, fighting the one battle he never thought he could win, so why should he trust this?

The used needles are discarded into the sharps container and trash pushed into a pile to be discarded later.

“It worked,” Joe says, eyes bright and twinkling with what Nicky thinks are unshed tears.

This is as much a win for him as it is for Joe, even though he doesn’t think Joe will ever quite understand this pain. This is the one thing immortality can’t heal, the one thing Nicky wishes it would heal, the one thing it doesn’t seem to want Nicky to heal.

“You will get there.” Joe’s voice is soft and quiet, not quite a whisper, and his hands are warm when they press against Nicky’s cheeks, gently holding him in place. “Where you are no longer in pain.”

It’s exhausting spending centuries in a body that doesn’t quite feel like home. But at least he’s not alone in his search for answers, for ways to make everything feel more like home, because he has Joe.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr @transyusuf


End file.
